Editing Willa Cather (section)

==Life and career==
In 1896, when Cather accepted a writing job with ''[[Home Monthly]]'', a women's magazine, she moved to [[Pittsburgh]].{{r|"pitt"}}<ref>{{Cite news |first=Patricia |last=Lowry |title=Places: In search of Willa Cather's East End haunts |url=http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08343/933170-42.stm |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=December 8, 2008 | access-date =July 20, 2010}}</ref> There, she produced journalistic pieces, short stories, and poetry.<ref name="homemonthly">{{cite journal |last1=Benson |first1=Peter |title=Willa Cather at Home Monthly |journal=Biography |year=1981 |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=227–248 |doi=10.1353/bio.2010.0814|s2cid=162300709 }}</ref> When the magazine was sold a year later,<ref>{{cite news |last1=McBride |first1=Mary Ellen |title=Willa Cather's Prose Captured Pittsburgh |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=July 18, 1973 |page=31}}</ref> she became a [[telegraph editor]] and critic for the ''[[Pittsburgh Leader]]'' and frequently contributed poetry and short fiction to ''The Library'', another local publication.<ref>[http://www.clpgh.org/exhibit/neighborhoods/northside/nor_n111.html And Death Comes for Willa Cather, Famous Author] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151210185746/http://www.clpgh.org/exhibit/neighborhoods/northside/nor_n111.html |date=December 10, 2015 }}, ''Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph'', April 25, 1947</ref> She also became a school teacher: She taught Latin, algebra, and English composition at Pittsburgh's Central High School for one year;<ref>{{cite book |last1=Duryea |first1=Polly P. |title=Paintings and Drawings in Willa Cather's Prose: A Catalogue Raisonné |date=1993 |publisher=University of Nebraska-Lincoln |page=13}}</ref> and then, taught English and Latin at the city's [[Allegheny High School]], where she rose to head the English department.<ref>{{cite news |title=Author Snubs City's Mills, Praises Poet |work=The Pittsburgh Press |date=June 23, 1934 |page=44}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Willa Cather, Author, Dies |work=The Pittsburgh Press |date=April 25, 1947 |page=2}}</ref>

Shortly after moving to Pittsburgh, Cather began publishing short stories in the ''Home Monthly'', including "[[Tommy, the Unsentimental]]"<ref>{{cite news |work=The Pittsburgh Press |date=July 26, 1896 |page=4 |title=Week's Outing to Cincinnati}}</ref> about a boyish-looking Nebraskan girl with a masculine name, who ultimately saves her father's banking business. Janis P. Stout in ''Willa Cather: The Writer and Her World'' (2000) cites this story among several Cather works that "demonstrate the speciousness of rigid gender roles, and give favorable treatment to characters who undermine conventions."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stout |first1=Janis P. |title=Willa Cather: The Writer and Her World |year=2000 |publisher=University Press of Virginia |isbn=978-0-813-91996-6 |page=90}}</ref> 

Cather resigned from her job at the Pittsburgh ''Leader'' in the late spring of 1900 before relocating to Washington, D.C., that fall.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Willa Cather: A Chronology of Her Life {{!}} Willa Cather Archive |url=https://cather.unl.edu/life/chronology |access-date=2024-10-17 |website=cather.unl.edu}}</ref> In April 1902, she published her final contribution to the Lincoln ''Courier'' before going abroad with Isabelle McClung that summer.<ref name=":1" /> Her first book, a collection of poetry called ''April Twilights'', came out in 1903.{{efn-ua|This collection of poetry, while described as unremarkable,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ryder |first1=Mary R. |title=Prosodic Variations in Willa Gather's Prairie Poems |journal=Western American Literature |year=1985 |volume=20 |issue=3 |pages=223–237 |doi=10.1353/wal.1985.0028|s2cid=165164839 }}</ref> was republished several times by Cather over her life, although with significant alterations.<ref name="solicitations">{{cite journal |last1=Thacker |first1=Robert |title="As the Result of Many Solicitations": Ferris Greenslet, Houghton Mifflin, and Cather's Career |journal=Studies in the Novel |year=2013 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=369–386 |jstor=23594848 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23594848 |issn=0039-3827}}</ref> Eleven of these poems were never again published after 1903.<ref name="firstbook">{{cite journal |last1=Slote |first1=Bernice |title=Willa Cather and Her First Book |journal=Prairie Schooner |year=1981 |volume=55 |issue=1/2 |pages=109–113 |jstor=40630730 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40630730 |issn=0032-6682}}</ref> This early experience with traditional, sentimental verse—without alteration from this scheme<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Woodress |first1=James |title=Whitman and Cather |journal=Études Anglaises |year=1992 |volume=45 |issue=3 |page=325 |language=en}}</ref>—was the basis for the rest of her literary career;<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fullbrook |first1=Kate |last2=Ostwalt |first2=Conrad E. |title=Review of April Twilights; Willa Cather's Modernism: A Study of Style and Technique; After Eden: The Secularization of American Space in the Fiction of Willa Cather and Theodore Dreiser, Conrad E. Ostwalt Jr.; Bergson and American Culture: The Worlds of Willa Cather and Wallace Stevens; Cather Studies |journal=Journal of American Studies |year=1992 |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=120–122 |doi=10.1017/S0021875800030498 |jstor=27555618 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27555618 |issn=0021-8758}}</ref> she remarked that one's earliest writing is formative.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Van Gastel |first1=Ada L. |title=An Unpublished Poem by Willa Cather |journal=Resources for American Literary Study |year=1984 |volume=14 |issue=1/2 |pages=153–159 |doi=10.2307/26366417 |jstor=26366417 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26366417 |issn=0048-7384}}</ref> While Cather's success was primarily in prose, her republishing of her earliest poetry suggests she wished to be taken as a poet as well.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stout |first1=Janis P. |title=Willa Cather's Poetry and the Object(s) of Art |journal=American Literary Realism |year=2003 |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=159–174 |jstor=27747093 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27747093 |issn=1540-3084}}</ref> But this is contradicted by Cather's own words, where in 1925, where she wrote, "I do not take myself seriously as a poet."<ref name="firstbook" /><ref>{{cite web |title=1925: LONDON {{!}} Willa Cather Archive |url=https://cather.unl.edu/writings/bohlke/letters/bohlke.l.04 |website=cather.unl.edu |access-date=February 5, 2021}}</ref>}} It was followed shortly afterward, in 1905, by Cather's first published collection of short stories, ''[[The Troll Garden]]'', containing some of her most famous short fiction, including "[[A Wagner Matinee]]," "[[The Sculptor's Funeral]]," and "[[Paul's Case]]."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Madigan |first1=Mark J. |title=Willa Cather and Dorothy Canfield Fisher |journal=Cather Studies |volume=1 |url=https://cather.unl.edu/scholarship/catherstudies/1/cs001.dorothy}}</ref>

Upon accepting an editorial position at ''[[McClure's]] Magazine'' in 1906, Cather moved to New York City.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Browne |editor1-first=Anita |title=The one hundred best books by American women during the past hundred years, 1833–1933, as chosen for the National council of women |date=1933 |publisher=Associated authors service |page=53}}</ref> But, while still working at ''McClure's'', she spent most of 1907 living in Boston, writing a series of exposés about the religious leader [[Mary Baker Eddy]] (although freelance journalist [[Georgine Milmine]] was solely credited as the author).<ref>''Chasing Bright Medusas: A Life of Willa Cather" by [[Benjamin Taylor (author)|Benjamin Taylor]], 2023. {{ISBN|978-0593-2988-24}}.  See page 48.''</ref> A 1993 letter, discovered in the [[Christian Science]] church archives by Eddy biographer [[Gillian Gill]], disclosed that Cather had, perhaps reluctantly, written articles 2 through 14 of the 14-part series.<ref>''Mary Baker Eddy'' by Gillian Gill, 1998, Perseus Books, 713 pages. {{ISBN|0-7382-0042-5}}. See pp 563-568</ref>  Milmine had performed copious research, but she had been unable to produce a manuscript independently, and ''McClure's'' employed Cather and a few other editors, including [[Burton J. Hendrick]], to assist her.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Squires |first1=Ashley |title=The Standard Oil Treatment: Willa Cather, "The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy", and Early Twentieth Century Collaborative Authorship |journal=Studies in the Novel |year=2013 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=328–348 |jstor=23594846 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23594846 |issn=0039-3827}}</ref> This work was serialized in ''McClure's'' over the next 18 months and then published in book form as ''[[The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science]]'', attributed entirely to Georgina Milmine, instead of identifying Willa Cather as its rightful author (as was revealed and confirmed decades later).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Squires |first1=L. Ashley |title=Healing the Nation: Literature, Progress, and Christian Science |date=2017 |publisher=Indiana University Press}}</ref>

''McClure's'' also serialized Cather's first novel, ''[[Alexander's Bridge]]'' (1912). While most reviews were favorable,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Castor |first1=Laura |title=Willa Cather, Alexander's Bridge Historical essay and explanatory notes by Tom Quirk, textual essay and editing by Frederick M. Link. |journal=American Studies in Scandinavia |year=2008 |volume=40 |issue=1–2 |pages=167–170 |doi=10.22439/asca.v40i1-2.4688}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Lloyd |title=Willa Cather |journal=The North American Review |year=1924 |volume=219 |issue=822 |pages=641–652 |jstor=25113302 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25113302 |issn=0029-2397}}</ref> including ''[[The Atlantic]]''<nowiki/>'s, which called the writing "deft and skillful,"<ref>''[[The Atlantic]]''. November 1912, p. 683.</ref> Cather herself soon saw the novel as weak and shallow.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bloom |first1=Edward A. |last2=Bloom |first2=Lillian D. |title=Willa Cather's gift of sympathy |date=1962 |publisher=Southern Illinois University Press |page=9}}</ref>

She followed ''Alexander's Bridge'' with three novels set in the Great Plains, which eventually became both popular and critical successes: ''[[O Pioneers!]]'' (1913),<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kitch |first1=Carolyn |title=The Work That Came Before the Art: Willa Cather as Journalist, 1893–1912 |journal=American Journalism |date=July 1997 |volume=14 |issue=3–4 |pages=425–440 |doi=10.1080/08821127.1997.10731934 |language=en |issn=0882-1127}}</ref> ''[[The Song of the Lark (novel)|The Song of the Lark]]'' (1915),<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Garvelink |first1=Lisa Bouma |title=The Nature of the Life of the Artist in Willa Cather's "The Song of the Lark" |journal=CEA Critic |year=2013 |volume=75 |issue=3 |pages=270–277 |jstor=44378518 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44378518 |issn=0007-8069}}</ref> and ''[[My Ántonia]]'' (1918).<ref name="possession">{{cite journal |last1=O'BRIEN |first1=SHARON |title=Possession and Publication: Willa Cather's Struggle to Save "My Ántonia" |journal=Studies in the Novel |year=2013 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=460–475 |jstor=23594852 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23594852 |issn=0039-3827}}</ref> Taken together, they are sometimes referred to as her "Prairie Trilogym"<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Old |first1=James Paul |title=Wandering over Boundless Fields: The Fiction of Willa Cather and the Reformation of Communal Memory |journal=American Political Thought |date=September 2018 |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=565–587 |doi=10.1086/699908|s2cid=158530806 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Eggan |first1=Taylor A. |title=Landscape Metaphysics: Narrative Architecture and the Focalisation of the Environment |journal=English Studies |date=May 19, 2018 |volume=99 |issue=4 |pages=398–411 |doi=10.1080/0013838X.2018.1475594 |s2cid=165304534 |language=en |issn=0013-838X}}</ref> a succession of plains-based novels that drew praise for their use of plainspoken language about ordinary people.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ranks Miss Cather 1st Woman Novelist |work=Hastings Daily Tribune |date=March 15, 1919 |page=5}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=The Greatness of Willa Cather |work=The Times Dispatch (Richmond, VA) |agency=Norfolk Virginian-Pilot |date=April 29, 1947 |page=8}}</ref> [[Sinclair Lewis]], for example, lauded her for making Nebraska accessible to the wider world for the first time.<ref>''Omaha World-Herald'', April 9, 1921.</ref> After writing ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]] lamented that it was a failure in comparison to ''My Ántonia''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kundu |first1=Gautam |title=Inadvertent Echoes or 'An Instance of Apparent Plagiarism'? Cather's "My Ántonia, A Lost Lady" and Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" |journal=Études Anglaises |year=1998 |volume=51 |issue=3 |page=326}}</ref>

=== 1920s ===
By 1920, Cather was dissatisfied with her publisher, [[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|Houghton Mifflin]], which had devoted an advertising budget of only $300 to ''My Ántonia'';<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire|last=Claridge|first=Laura|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|year=2016|isbn=978-0-374-11425-1|edition= First|pages=63–65|oclc=908176194}}</ref> refused to pay for all the illustrations she had commissioned from [[Władysław T. Benda]] for the book; <ref name="possession" /> and produced a poorly and cheaply made volume.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Harris |first1=Richard C. |title="Dear Alfred"/"Dear Miss Cather": Willa Cather and Alfred Knopf, 1920—1947 |journal=Studies in the Novel |year=2013 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=387–407 |jstor=23594849 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23594849 |issn=0039-3827}}</ref> So, that year, she turned to the young publishing house of [[Alfred A. Knopf]], which had a reputation for supporting its authors through advertising campaigns.<ref name=":0" /> She also liked the look of its books and had been impressed with its edition of ''[[Green Mansions]]'' by [[William Henry Hudson]].<ref name=":0" /> She so appreciated their style that all her Knopf books of the 1920s (save for one printing of her short story collection ''[[Youth and the Bright Medusa]]'') matched its design on their second and subsequent printings.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ronning |first1=Kari A. |title=Speaking Volumes: Embodying Cather's Works |journal=Studies in the Novel |year=2013 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=519–537 |jstor=23594855 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23594855 |issn=0039-3827}}</ref>

Cather was, by then, firmly established as a major [[American literature|American writer]], receiving the [[Pulitzer Prize]] in 1923 for her World War I-based novel, ''[[One of Ours]]''.<ref name=":0" /> She followed it with the popular ''[[Death Comes for the Archbishop]]'' in 1927, selling 86,500 copies in just two years.<ref name="canonical30s">{{cite journal |last1=Jaillant |first1=Lise |title=Canonical in the 1930s: Willa Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop" in the Modern Library Series |journal=Studies in the Novel |year=2013 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=476–499 |jstor=23594853 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23594853 |issn=0039-3827}}</ref> It has been included on the [[Modern Library 100 Best Novels]] of the 20th century.<ref name=":0" /> 

Two of her three other novels of the decade—''[[A Lost Lady]]'' and ''[[The Professor's House]]''—elevated her literary status dramatically. She was invited to give several hundred public lectures, earned significant royalties, and sold the movie rights to ''A Lost Lady''. Yet her other novel of the decade, ''[[My Mortal Enemy]]'', published in 1926, received no widespread acclaim—and neither she nor her life partner, [[Edith Lewis]], made significant mention of it later in their lives.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Vanderlaan |first1=Kim |title=Sacred Spaces, Profane "Manufactories": Willa Cather's Split Artist in The Professor's House and My Mortal Enemy |journal=Western American Literature |year=2011 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=4–24 |doi=10.1353/wal.2011.0035|s2cid=144199893 }}</ref>

Despite her success, she was also subject to harsh criticism, particularly surrounding ''One of Ours''. Her close friend, [[Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant]], saw the novel as a betrayal of the realities of war, not understanding how to "bridge the gap between [Cather's] idealized war vision ... and my own stark impressions of war as ''lived''."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Garvelink |first1=Lisa Bouma |title=Willa Cather's Voyage Perilous: A Case for One of Ours |journal=Women's Studies |date=October 2004 |volume=33 |issue=7 |pages=907–931 |doi=10.1080/00497870490503851|s2cid=145563235 }}</ref> Similarly, [[Ernest Hemingway]] took issue with her portrayal of war, writing in a 1923 letter, "Wasn't [the novel's] last scene in the lines wonderful? Do you know where it came from? The battle scene in ''[[The Birth of a Nation|Birth of a Nation]]''. I identified episode after episode, Catherized. Poor woman, she had to get her war experience somewhere."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Onion |first1=Rebecca |title=On the Sexist Reception of Willa Cather's World War I Novel |url=https://lithub.com/on-the-sexist-reception-of-willa-cathers-world-war-i-novel/ |website=Literary Hub |date=October 21, 2019}}</ref>

In 1929, she was elected to the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.artsandletters.org/membership|title=Membership (search under deceased not all)|website=American Academy of Arts and Letters}}</ref>


=== 1930s ===

By the 1930s, an increasingly large share of critics began to dismiss her as overly romantic and nostalgic, unable to grapple with contemporary issues:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clere |first1=Sarah E. |title=Troubling Bodies in the Fiction of Willa Cather |date=2011 |publisher=University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |page=5}}</ref> [[Granville Hicks]], for instance, charged Cather with escaping into an idealized past to avoid confronting the problems of the present.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hicks |first1=Granville |title=The Case against Willa Cather |journal=The English Journal |year=1933 |volume=22 |issue=9 |pages=703–710 |doi=10.2307/804321 |jstor=804321 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/804321 |issn=0013-8274}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=O'Brien |first1=Sharon |title=Becoming Noncanonical: The Case Against Willa Cather |journal=American Quarterly |year=1988 |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=110–126 |doi=10.2307/2713144 |jstor=2713144 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2713144 |issn=0003-0678}}</ref> And it was particularly in the context of the hardships of the [[Great Depression]] in which her work was seen as lacking social relevance.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Old |first1=James Paul |title=Making Good Americans: The Politics of Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop |journal=Perspectives on Political Science |date=January 2, 2021 |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=52–61 |doi=10.1080/10457097.2020.1830673 |issn=1045-7097 |s2cid=225123832 }}</ref> Similarly, critics—and Cather herself<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Urgo |first1=Joseph |title=Review of Willa Cather and Material Culture: Real-World Writing, Writing the Real World |journal=South Atlantic Review |year=2005 |volume=70 |issue=2 |pages=182–186 |jstor=20064654 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20064654 |issn=0277-335X}}</ref>—were disappointed when her novel ''A Lost Lady'' was made into [[A Lost Lady (1934 film)|a film]]; the film had little resemblance to the novel.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Melcher |first1=E. de S. |title=Willa Cather Novel Loses Much in the Screen Story |work=Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) |date=November 17, 1934 |page=21}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=C. |first1=E.N. |title=Literary Topics |work=Hartford Courant |date=September 5, 1934 |page=8}}</ref>

Cather's lifelong conservative politics,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Frus |first1=Phyllis |last2=Corkin |first2=Stanley |title=Cather Criticism and the American Canon |journal=College English |year=1997 |volume=59 |issue=2 |pages=206–217 |doi=10.2307/378552 |jstor=378552 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/378552 |issn=0010-0994}}</ref>{{efn-ua|Not all critics see her 1930s political views as conservative; Reynolds argues that while she was reactionary later in life, she subscribed to a form of rural populism and progressivism, built on the continuity of community,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reynolds |first1=Guy |title=The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-00086-4 |pages=19–34 |chapter=Willa Cather as progressive}}</ref> and Clasen views her as a progressive.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Clasen |first1=Kelly |title=Feminists of the Middle Border: Willa Cather, Hamlin Garland, and the Female Land Ethic |journal=CEA Critic |year=2013 |volume=75 |issue=2 |pages=93–108 |jstor=44378769 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44378769 |issn=0007-8069}}</ref> Similarly, it has been suggested she was distinctly opaque, and that in terms of literary innovation, she was solidly progressive, even radical.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Arnold |first1=Marilyn |title=Willa Cather's Artistic "Radicalism" |journal=CEA Critic |year=1989 |volume=51 |issue=4 |pages=2–10 |jstor=44377562 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44377562 |issn=0007-8069}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Goldberg |first1=Jonathan |title=Photographic Relations: Laura Gilpin, Willa Cather |journal=American Literature |year=1998 |volume=70 |issue=1 |pages=63–95 |doi=10.2307/2902456 |jstor=2902456 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2902456 |issn=0002-9831}}</ref>}} appealing to critics such as Mencken, [[Randolph Bourne]], and [[Carl Van Doren]], soured her reputation with younger, often left-leaning critics like Hicks and [[Edmund Wilson]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Decker|first=James M.|title=Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism|journal=Modern Language Review|date=April 2003|doi=10.2307/3737843|jstor=3737843}}</ref><ref name="affect">{{cite journal |last1=Nealon |first1=Christopher |title=Affect-Genealogy: Feeling and Affiliation in Willa Cather |journal=American Literature |year=1997 |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=5–37 |doi=10.2307/2928167 |jstor=2928167 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2928167 |issn=0002-9831}}</ref> Despite this critical opposition to her work, Cather remained a popular writer whose novels and short story collections continued to sell well; in 1931 ''[[Shadows on the Rock]]'' was the most widely read novel in the United States, and ''[[Lucy Gayheart]]'' became a bestseller in 1935.<ref name=Ahearn />

Although Cather made her last trip to Red Cloud in 1931 for a family gathering after her mother's death, she stayed in touch with her Red Cloud friends and sent money to Annie Pavelka and other families during the Depression years.{{r|Lee1990|page=327}} In 1932, Cather published ''[[Obscure Destinies]]'', her final collection of short fiction, which contained "[[Neighbour Rosicky]]," one of her most highly regarded stories. That same summer, she moved into a new apartment on [[Park Avenue]] with Edith Lewis, and during a visit on Grand Manan, she probably began working on her next novel, ''Lucy Gayheart''.<ref name="gayheartdate">{{cite journal |last1=Homestead |first1=Melissa |title=Yet More Cather-Knopf Correspondence |journal=Willa Cather Review |year=2017 |volume=59 |issue=2 |page=3}}</ref>{{efn-ua|Some sources indicate that Cather began writing ''Lucy Gayheart'' in 1933.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Giannone |first1=Richard |title=Music, Silence, and the Spirituality of Willa Gather |journal=Renascence |year=2005 |volume=57 |issue=2 |pages=123–149 |doi=10.5840/renascence20055723}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Baker |first1=Deena Michelle |title="What now?": Willa Cather's successful male professionals at middle age |date=2006 |page=41 |url=https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4240&context=etd-project}}</ref> Homestead argues instead that she truly began writing in the summer of 1932.<ref name="gayheartdate" /> Some sources agree with her.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lindemann |first1=Marilee |title=The Cambridge companion to Willa Cather |date=2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-52793-4 |page=xx |edition=1st}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Porter |first1=David |title=From The Song of the Lark to Lucy Gayheart, and Die Walküre to Die Winterreise |journal=Cather Studies |year=2017 |volume=11 |doi=10.2307/j.ctt1qv5psc.12 |url=https://cather.unl.edu/scholarship/catherstudies/11/cs011.porter |access-date=February 1, 2021}}</ref> Others are imprecise or ambiguous.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Porter |first1=David |title=Following the Lieder: Cather, Schubert, and Lucy Gayheart |journal=Cather Studies |year=2015 |volume=10 |doi=10.2307/j.ctt1d98c6j.19 |url=https://cather.unl.edu/scholarship/catherstudies/10/cs010.porter |access-date=February 1, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Harvey |first1=Sally Elizabeth Peltier |title=Willa Cather: Redefining the American Dream |year=1992}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Johnston |first1=William Winfred |title=MUSIC IN THE FICTION OF WILLA CATHER |date=1953 |page=176 |url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc130334/m2/1/high_res_d/n_02230.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Randall |first1=John Herman |title=The landscape and the looking glass; Willa Cather's search for value |date=1960 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |page=353}}</ref> Her idea for the story may have been formed as early as the 1890s (using the name Gayhardt instead of Gayheart, based on a woman she met at a party),<ref>{{cite book |last1=Edel |first1=Leon |title=Willa Cather, the paradox of success; a lecture delivered under the auspices of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund in the Coolidge Auditorium |date=1960 |publisher=Library of Congress |page=13}}</ref> and it is possible she began writing as early as 1926<ref name="ohlucy">{{cite book |last1=Stout |first1=Janis P. |title=Cather among the moderns |date=2019 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |isbn=978-0-817-32014-0 |page=68}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Cather |first1=Willa |title=Louise Guerber (October 15 [1926]) {{!}} Willa Cather Archive |url=https://cather.unl.edu/writings/letters/let2871 |website=cather.unl.edu |access-date=February 1, 2021 |date=1926}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Porter |first1=David |title=1926: Blue Eyes on the Platte Enters Gayheartedly |journal=Willa Cather Newsletter & Review |year=2013 |volume=56 |issue=2 |page=32}}</ref> or 1927.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chown |first1=Linda |title="It Came Closer than That": Willa Cather's Lucy Gayheart |journal=Cather Studies |year=1993 |volume=2 |url=https://cather.unl.edu/scholarship/catherstudies/2/cs002.closer |access-date=February 8, 2021}}</ref> While she intended to name the novel ''Blue Eyes on the Platte'' early on, she changed the title<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Nebraskaland |year=1966 |volume=44 |page=56 |publisher=Nebraska Game and Parks Commission | title=Daughter of the Prairies}}</ref> and made Lucy's eyes brown.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=BENNETT |first1=MILDRED R. |title=Willa Cather's Bodies for Ghosts |journal=Western American Literature |year=1982 |volume=17 |issue=1 |page=45 |jstor=43020206 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43020206 |issn=0043-3462}}</ref> Stout suggests mention of ''Blue Eyes on the Platte'' may have been facetious, only beginning to write and think about ''Lucy Gayheart'' in 1933.<ref name="ohlucy" /> This is contradicted by Edith Lewis insisting that not only did she begin working on ''Blue Eyes on the Platte'' "several years before" 1933, but that it was the precursor to ''Lucy Gayheart''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cather |first1=Willa |editor1-last=Porter |editor1-first=David H. |editor1-link=Historical essay |title=Lucy Gayheart |date=August 2015  |isbn=978-0-803-27687-1 |page=288 |publisher=U of Nebraska Press |edition=Willa Cather Scholarly}}</ref> Regardless of which of these details are true, it is known that Cather reused images from her 1911 short story, "[[The Joy of Nelly Deane]]", in ''Lucy Gayheart''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rosowski |first1=Susan J. |title=Willa Cather's female landscapes: The song of the lark and Lucy Gayheart |journal=Women's Studies |date=December 1984 |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=233–246 |doi=10.1080/00497878.1984.9978614}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Baker |first1=Deena Michelle |title="What now?": Willa Cather's successful male professionals at middle age middle age |date=2006 |publisher=California State University, San Bernardino |page=6}}</ref> "The Joy of Nelly Deane" may be best understood as an earlier version of ''Lucy Gayheart'' altogether.<ref name="jstor.org" />}} She was elected to the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1934.<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Willa+Cather&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-06-16 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

Cather suffered two devastating losses in 1938.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Cather |first1=Willa |title=Dorothy Canfield Fisher (March 5 [1939]) {{!}} Willa Cather Archive |url=https://cather.unl.edu/writings/letters/let1440 |website=cather.unl.edu |date=March 5, 1939}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Cather |first1=Willa |title=Ferris Greenslet (October 12 [1938]) {{!}} Willa Cather Archive |url=https://cather.unl.edu/writings/letters/let1419 |website=cather.unl.edu |date=October 12, 1938 |quote=They were the two people dearest to me.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Cather |first1=Willa |title=Mary Willard (May 6, 1941) {{!}} Willa Cather Archive |url=https://cather.unl.edu/writings/letters/let1540 |website=cather.unl.edu |date=May 6, 1941 |quote=I have waited for some days to turn to you, because I seemed unable to utter anything but a cry of grief and bitter disappointment. Only Isabelle's death and the death of my brother Douglass have cut me so deep. The feeling I have, all the time, is that so much of my life has been cut away.}}</ref> In June, her favorite brother, Douglass, died of a heart attack. Cather was too grief-stricken to attend the funeral.{{r|Woodress|page=478}} Four months later, Isabelle McClung died. Cather and McClung had lived together when Cather first arrived in Pittsburgh, and while McClung eventually married the musician [[Jan Hambourg]] and moved with her husband to Toronto,<ref>[[Eric Koch|Koch, Eric]] (1997). ''The Brothers Hambourg''</ref><ref name=Gatenby215>{{cite book|last1=Gatenby|first1=Greg|title=The Wild is Always There: Canada through the eyes of foreign writers|date=1993|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf Canada|isbn=978-0-39428-023-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/wildisalwaysther0000unse/page/215 215]|url=https://archive.org/details/wildisalwaysther0000unse/page/215}}</ref> the two women remained devoted friends.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stouck |first1=David |title=Marriage and Friendship in "My Ántonia" |journal=Great Plains Quarterly |year=1982 |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=224–231 |jstor=24467939 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24467939 |issn=0275-7664}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mason |first1=Julian |title=An Interesting Willa Cather Letter |journal=American Literature |year=1986 |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=109–111 |doi=10.2307/2925947 |jstor=2925947 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2925947 |issn=0002-9831}}</ref>{{efn-ua|Cather wrote hundreds of letters to McClung over her life, and most of them were returned to Cather by McClung's husband. Almost all of these were destroyed.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pritchard |first1=William H. |title=Epistolary Cather |journal=The Hudson Review |year=2013 |volume=66 |issue=2 |pages=387–394 |jstor=43488733 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43488733 |issn=0018-702X}}</ref><ref name="obscurerecord">{{cite journal |last1=Jewell |first1=Andrew |title=Why Obscure the Record? The Psychological Context of Willa Cather's Ban on Letter Publication |journal=Biography |year=2017 |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=399–424 |jstor=26405083 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26405083 |issn=0162-4962}}</ref>}} Cather wrote that Isabelle was the person for whom she wrote all her books.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=Susie |title=Willa Cather |date=1990 |publisher=Macmillan Education  |isbn=978-0-33342-360-8 |page=13}}</ref>

=== Final years ===

During the summer of 1940, Cather and Lewis went to Grand Manan for the last time, and Cather finished her final novel, ''[[Sapphira and the Slave Girl]]'', a book much darker in tone and subject matter than her previous works.{{r|Woodress|page=483}}<ref>{{cite news |last1=Walton |first1=David |title=Putting Cather into Perspective |work=The Philadelphia Inquirer |date=March 4, 1990 |page=3-J}}</ref> While Sapphira is understood by readers as lacking a moral sense and failing to evoke empathy,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Salas |first1=Angela M. |title=Willa Cather's Sapphira and the Slave Girl: Extending the Boundaries of the Body |journal=College Literature |year=1997 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=97–108 |jstor=25112300 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25112300 |issn=0093-3139}}</ref> the novel was a great critical and commercial success, with an advance printing of 25,000 copies.<ref name="canonical30s" /> It was then adopted by the [[Book of the Month Club]],<ref>{{cite news |title=Sensational Autobiography Chosen |work=The Times Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia) |date=December 8, 1940 |page=76}}</ref> which bought more than 200,000 copies.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Jaap |first1=James A. |title=Breaking Fresh Ground: New Releases from the Willa Cather Edition |journal=Resources for American Literary Study |year=2009 |volume=34 |pages=215–222 |doi=10.7756/rals.034.009.215-222 |jstor=26367245 |s2cid=163536829 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26367245 |issn=0048-7384}}</ref> Her final story, "[[The Best Years (story)|The Best Years]]",<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cather |first1=Willa |title=Youth and the Bright Medusa: The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition |date=2009 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |url=https://cather.unl.edu/writings/books/0021}}</ref> intended as a gift for her brother,<ref name="autobio">{{cite book |last1=Burgess |first1=Cheryll |title=Willa Cather : family, community, and history (the BYU symposium) |date=1990 |publisher=Brigham Young University, Humanities Publications Center |isbn=0842522999 |page=52 |chapter=Cather's Homecomings}}</ref> was retrospective. It contained images or "keepsakes" from each of her twelve published novels and the short stories in ''Obscure Destinies''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Skaggs |first1=Merrill Maguire |title=Icons and Willa Cather |journal=Cather Studies |year=2007 |volume=7 |doi=10.2307/j.ctt1djmfsp.23 |url=https://cather.unl.edu/scholarship/catherstudies/7/cs007.skaggs}}</ref>

Although an inflamed tendon in her hand hampered her writing, Cather managed to finish a substantial part of a novel set in [[Avignon]], France. She had titled it ''[[Hard Punishments]]'' and placed it in the 14th century during the reign of [[Antipope Benedict XIV]].{{r|Lee1990|page=371}} She was elected a fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1943.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Cather |first1=Willa |title=Women's History Month |url=https://www.amacad.org/archives/gallery/womens-history-month |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |access-date=February 3, 2021 |language=en}}</ref> The same year, she executed a will that prohibited the publication of her letters and dramatization of her works.<ref name="obscurerecord" /> In 1944, she received the gold medal for fiction from the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters|National Institute of Arts and Letters]], a prestigious award given for an author's total accomplishments.<ref>{{cite news |title=MISS CATHER WINS INSTITUTE AWARD |work=The New York Times |date=January 28, 1944 |page=13}}</ref>

Cather was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 1945 and underwent a mastectomy on January 14, 1946.{{r|Homestead|pages=294–295}} By early 1947, her cancer  had [[Metastasis|metastasized]] to her liver, becoming [[stage IV cancer]].{{r|Homestead|page=296}}On April 24, 1947, Cather died of a [[cerebral hemorrhage]] at the age of 73 in her home at 570 Park Avenue in [[Manhattan]].<ref name=obit>{{cite news |title=Author of ''Lost Lady'' Won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922 for Writing ''One of Ours''|url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1207.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=April 25, 1947 |access-date= January 18, 2014 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Mulligan |first1=Hugh A. |title=Visiting Willa Cather: Sabbatical of the Heart |work=The Shreveport Journal |agency=Associated Press |date=February 13, 1980 |page=52}}</ref> After Cather's death, Edith Lewis destroyed the manuscript of ''Hard Punishments'' according to Cather's instructions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Homestead |first1=Melissa J. |title=Cather, Willa |journal=The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction |date=December 24, 2010 |volume=II |doi=10.1002/9781444337822.wbetcfv2c005|isbn=978-1-444-33782-2 }}</ref> She is buried at the southwest corner of [[Jaffrey, New Hampshire]]'s Old Burying Ground,<ref>Wilson, Scott. ''Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'', 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 7776). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Swanson |first1=Stevenson |title=Scholars ponder why writer of Plains chose burial in East |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2003-07-13-0307130239-story.html |access-date=February 2, 2021 |work=Chicago Tribune |date=July 13, 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Homestead |first1=Melissa J. |last2=Kaufman |first2=Anne L. |title=Nebraska, New England, New York: Mapping the Foreground of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis's Creative Partnership |journal=Western American Literature |year=2008 |volume=43 |issue=1 |page=46 |doi=10.1353/wal.2008.0050|s2cid=160102859 |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishfacpubs/77 }}</ref> a place she first visited when joining Isabelle McClung and her husband, violinist [[Jan Hambourg]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gleason |first1=John B. |title=The "Case" of Willa Cather |journal=Western American Literature |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=275–299 |doi=10.1353/wal.1986.0072 |year=1986|s2cid=165975307 }}</ref> at the Shattuck Inn.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/travel/yankee-locals-monadnock/willa-cather-grave|title=Jaffrey: Willa Cather's Last Page|access-date=April 9, 2014|date=September 9, 2008|archive-date=April 13, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140413144827/http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/travel/yankee-locals-monadnock/willa-cather-grave|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bean |first1=Margaret C. |title=Willa Cather in Jaffrey |journal=Studies in Jaffrey History |year=2005 |volume=1 |page=5}}</ref> Lewis was buried alongside Cather some 25 years later.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/08/12/archives/edith-lewis-friend-of-willa-cather.html |title=Edith Lewis, Friend of Willa Cather |date=August 12, 1972 |newspaper=The New York Times |accessdate=February 7, 2018}}</ref>